Future of melonDS
Hello there. There hasn't been a whole lot of melonDS related activity lately.

I've been completely caught in a different, but fun project. If you have seen my Github lately, you might have an idea what it's all about. It's actually an idea I've had since 2016: hacking the WiiU gamepad to run custom code on it, and trying to figure out what kind of cool things are possible. I made attempts back in 2016 and 2022, but never really got anywhere. However, 3 months ago I felt like making a more serious attempt (namely involving a FPGA board) and actually managed to get things done. I kinda want to make a non-melonDS blog to talk about that kind of projects, too -- there would be a lot to say. This project is really challenging and intellectually stimulating, which is all I love!

Anyway, I digress.

melonDS.

I still need to finish fixing the bugs before we can release 1.0. I hope I'll manage to get myself to get there, given the way my focus and motivation works.

First, thank you all for your kind comments! It means a lot.

Next, the plans. As I mentioned before, I want to take a big break from melonDS after releasing 1.0. melonDS will be 8 years old, and that's a lot, especially for a project of mine. It has been a very good project and I've had a lot of fun, but I think I need to do other things for a while.

However, melonDS isn't going to go dead.

You might have noticed that Jakly has been contributing a lot of accuracy improvements to melonDS. The amount of research she has been putting into things like the 3D rasterizer, or lately the ARM CPUs themselves, researching all the weirdest quirks and trying to emulate them, has been astounding. Better than even I have done years ago.

Not everything has been merged yet, because for some things it boils down to the cost vs benefits -- some can be included in melonDS without really hurting performance, but some would be more suited towards a 'developer' build.

Regardless, it would make sense for Jakly to be my successor, in a way. I don't want to completely abandon melonDS, but you get the idea. I'll give her access to this blog so she can make juicy technical posts too.

And of course, the rest of the team is still around too. While their contributions will largely depend on whether they feel as burnt-out as me, you can be sure melonDS isn't going dead anytime soon.

I also want to finally finish the nightly builds section. My concern there was about versioning, but we have an idea for that. We'll add an About dialog to melonDS, with the full versioning information, so nightlies can be distinguished from release builds. Then I'll be able to open this up.

That's all folks! See you in November for the 1.0 release.
zer0_77 says:
Oct 19th 2024
Im so happy to hear that Jakly is the "sucessor"! I think that Jakly is doing a lot of for MelonDS and have so much talent!

Arisotura only take the time that you need, we are so happy of the thinks that you did (and doing of course) for MelonDS!
riley pokio says:
Oct 21st 2024
hell yes man keep it going
Maiky says:
Oct 21st 2024
Arisotura the emulator MelonDS is the best one! <3 but I hope the 3D gets better with the new update in some games it still remains pixelated even with the internal resolution at maximum, in the Emulator Desmume when we select 3D Rendering OpenGL 3.2 and increase the GPU Scaling Factor the game become so smooth and in 3D without pixelation or jitter, hope you can put that similar option or better *o* <33
c_axl says:
Oct 22nd 2024
8 years have passed very quickly, OMG! I look forward to Melonds 1.0.
Congratulations, I hope that after this, you have a rest..
DS Fan says:
Oct 24th 2024
I started rechecking these forums as a result of the yuzu/citra suit, since I'd lost touch with the emulator scene. I've been lurking on these but man, this feels like the end of an era. Best of luck with everything going forward Arisotura, you've enriched my life in ways I can't even fully express.
DS Fan says:
Oct 24th 2024
Also: there's a website called melonds.org. Is it related to the project at all or is it like some rando who's taken the domain name opportunistically?
Arisotura says:
Oct 26th 2024
melonds.org is a fake site that is part of a larger network -- they just exist to leech google traffic.

if you can, report it to Bing for being an imposter.
Victor Y says:
Oct 30th 2024

I hope everything goes well by November.
Kennosuke88 says:
Nov 5th 2024
I'm well keen to get v1.0! Hyped as hell, go Melon team!
Neuro says:
Nov 7th 2024
Your work (and that of your contributors) has allowed me to relive some of the memories of my childhood better than many other emulators can. You're awesome!
Flume says:
Nov 7th 2024
Is version 1.0 coming out this month?
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